Jan Posted by A Broken Christian. Devotional Thought of the Day: 5 You welcome those who gladly do good, who follow godly ways. But you have been very angry with us, for we are not godly. We are constant sinners; how can people like us be saved? When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rag s. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins. Isaiah NLT. Let us add a word here about reward and merit. We teach that good works are meritorious—not for the forgiveness of sins, grace, or justification for we obtain these only by faith but for other physical and spiritual rewards in this life and in that which is to come, as Paul says 1 Cor.
Popular for those who abuse it, as they use it to call people to convert, or to repent. But the idea is that everything we do is horrid, unclean, unable to please God.
In Lutheran theology, we would refer to this as denying the Third Use of the Law. It even talks there of mortification of the flesh, the work that Paul talked of in 1 Corinthians 9. I would draw your attention to the very passage the quote about filthy rags comes from in the first place. This is not a theological passage by literary style. It is a narrative, the words of the prophet, repentant and contrite, pleading with God.
Pleading with God to rip open the divide between heaven and earth, to come into our midst, and save us. To come and mold is, to do the very work Paul will describe in Phil. That God would come and save us, bearing our sin, and suffering that we would be healed and restored. This section about filthy rags was hoping for Jesus to come and die on the cross, and for us to be reborn with Him. So be careful how you fling around this passage, and the doctrines you create or try to sustain it.
